He turned around and walked back to stand beside the bed, looking down into her face. “Is there anything you would like before you leave?” he asked with the best of intentions.
She smiled up to him lazily and reached for his groin. “All I have the right to ask for is that you once again serve one of your humble subjects,” she said softly.
He bent over, reached under the silk sheet for her, and put his lips on hers.
The sound made by two swords in combat is like no other in the world, Tristan thought as he parried yet another and even stronger of Frederick’s thrusts. An ironic thing, a sword, being both the taker and the protector of life. But there was no more time to occupy his mind with such luxuries, for Frederick had set upon him yet again, and the swords they were practicing with were real.
They had been at it for almost an hour now in the training yard of the Royal Guard, and given the relative importance of their positions in the realm, a crowd of spectators, mostly other members of the Guard, had formed around the outer edges of their area of contest and had begun to cheer on their respective favorites. It occurred to Tristan between ragged breaths that the two of them had managed to turn a simple training exercise into a blatant contest, complete with spectators. Where Frederick was stronger, Tristan was quicker. Where Frederick was tougher, Tristan was smarter. Each of them was determined to make the other yield without bloodshed, but so far neither had been able to gain a clear advantage. This particular training area was one of both Tristan’s and Frederick’s favorites because it was also full of training obstacles that an opponent could hide behind, jump over, and use or throw to his advantage, just as might occur in real combat.
Frederick’s broadsword whistled through the air at him again, this time from overhead. Tristan stepped quickly, not back but directly forward, and turned on his heel 180 degrees to end up standing virtually neck-to-neck with Frederick, and facing the same way. He quickly extended his arms and cut his sword around his body in a plane level with the ground as if to cut Frederick in two, but again the larger, older man was not to be denied. Frederick stepped back with almost unheard-of speed for a man his size, missing Tristan’s sweep altogether, and stabbed his sword directly at the prince’s midsection. Another sharp parry from Tristan, and they once again found themselves on equal footing, swords raised, their dirty faces smiling at each other as they slowly circled.
After doing his gentlemanly duty by watching Evelyn depart this morning in one of the palace carriages, Tristan had decided to shake off the cobwebs of the previous evening by joining the Guard in some training, and Frederick had been the willing recipient of the prince’s need for exercise. Tristan had hoped that it would help take his mind off the upcoming abdication ceremony. Evelyn, although lovely, had not proven to be an important enough occurrence in his life to change his outlook about the future, and he doubted he would see her again.
And so he had taken to the Royal Guard training grounds to sweat his depression out of himself.
The two friends circled each other slowly, each trying to decide the right time to strike again. “You’re getting too old for this,” Tristan taunted. “But I suppose it’s good that I give you the benefit of my great expertise while I still can, since you will soon be spending all of your time attending the changing of the diapers instead of the changing of the Guard.” He smiled nastily and waggled the point of his sword in front of Frederick’s face. “But don’t worry, Brother-in-law,” he continued. “I’m sure in my position as king I can persuade my sister to let you out of the palace once in a while—say, once every other month or so.”
With unexpected speed, Frederick launched himself at Tristan. But the prince gave no ground, and they found themselves locked against each other, their swords crossed between their bodies, their grimacing faces only inches apart.
“At least I showed up dressed for the occasion last night.” Frederick grunted, straining against Tristan’s surprising strength. “I couldn’t tell whether you were part of the royal family or just a particularly grubby servant. I almost ordered you to fetch me a glass of wine, but then again, I heard you had plenty of that yourself.”
Then, suddenly, Frederick did something odd. Instead of carrying on the fight he looked directly over Tristan’s shoulder. The prince saw his friend’s face fall, as if Frederick had just seen something horrible. Tristan started to turn his own eyes to the right, but that was exactly what Frederick had been hoping for. In the split second that Tristan’s attention was diverted, Frederick stopped straining against the prince and reached down to Tristan’s right ankle, quickly pulling it up and over, launching the prince to the hard ground on his back in the dust of the training yard. Frederick’s blade was at Tristan’s throat in an instant. “Do you yield?” It wasn’t as much a question as a command. It was over, the prince knew. There could be no escape from this position, and truth be known, had Frederick really wanted him dead Tristan would have been so several moments ago, a bloody hole where his larynx used to be. “I yield,” he said begrudgingly. Then Tristan looked up in momentary horror as the point of Frederick’s broadsword came hurtling straight down at his face, only to bury itself finally in the ground about three inches away from his right temple.
Despite the fact that it was the prince who had lost, the crowd erupted in hoots, applause, and catcalls. Tristan smiled. These men were his friends, and he wouldn’t have had it any other way.
Frederick’s great bear’s paw of a hand came to pull Tristan back up to his feet. The two of them began to brush the dust off themselves. Frederick smiled broadly and put an affectionate arm around the prince’s shoulders, and the two walked side by side to the well on one edge of the courtyard.
“That was quite a trick,” Tristan said, first pouring a carafe of water over his head and then shaking some of the water out of his hair. He raised the carafe high and took several long swallows from it before looking again at Frederick. “When did you learn that?”
“That wasn’t a trick, it was a technique,” Frederick said rather impatiently. “And when I learned it isn’t as important as how I learned it.” He took the offered carafe from Tristan. “You’re missing the point again. Although you did very well today, probably better than anyone else in the Guard could have, you still spend too much time looking at my face during battle. As I have told you repeatedly, keep your eyes on my abdomen, so that you can more quickly tell where both of my arms and legs are, and when they are about to move against you.” He paused, looking into the dark-blue eyes of the brother-in-law he had come to love so much. “After all, it isn’t my face that can harm you, it’s my sword.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” Tristan said with an expression of mock seriousness. “Have you looked in the mirror lately?”
Frederick flat-handed the prince so hard on his left shoulder that Tristan almost fell off the bench. After the two of them had stopped laughing, Frederick’s face became more serious. “Truthfully, Tristan, are you all right? A lot of people are worried about you, and not just those of us in the family. I have heard from several places this morning that the wizards of the Directorate are virtually beside themselves with you. And I have it on good authority that they’re in yet another of their famous closed-door sessions with your father right now. What in the name of the Afterlife did you do yesterday up in those woods to get everyone into such an uproar? I haven’t seen them all this upset since that time you were found in your bedchambers pursuing your ‘studies’ with one of your nannies.” After a brief and knowing smile between men, Frederick’s face grew grave again. “Seriously, is there anything you would like to talk about? You know I am always here to help.” He looked down in obvious distaste at the prince’s clothes. “And are you ever going to get out of those?”